Date: Unspecified Time: Unspecified Location: Myriad Realms, Lil. Red Storm realm "These two are a handful, aren't they?" Dalie said, eyeing Dulas and Biore before turning to praise Ceed. "Our Ceed is the best; she's so knowledgeable." Clearly, she was biased toward her kin.
However, she quickly coughed to clear her throat, masking her embarrassment and assuming a more elder-like demeanor. She then asked the chaos dwarves, "Which one of you is skilled at array formation?"
"Array formation? I know the basics, just enough to help me with my crafting," Biore said, not hiding his disdain for array formation. He hated it because it stole jobs from honest crafters. It took crafters years of research and numerous trials and errors to create efficient and economical craft prints, but array masters used these craft prints to design arrays that mass-produced items and sold them cheaply.
By doing so, array masters created a competitive market that stole jobs from hardworking crafters, catering only to the talented ones based on the popularity of the craft prints they created. This practice snatched the livelihood of average crafters, who couldn't match the low prices of mass-produced goods. This belief wasn't unique to Biore; many crafters shared his sentiments. It was why crafters both hated and loved array masters.
"I know a little. I learned it to create an array formation for my uncle's workshop," Dulas revealed. Though her primary passion was crafting, her life had led her to learn array formation.
When Dulas was assigned as Bigold's assistant, he made her sit in his workshop and help him sell his crafted items, leaving her no time to craft, let alone improve her skills. Fed up, she suggested her uncle hire professional sales personnel to cater to customers and sell his crafted items instead of wasting her time. However, being a cheapskate, Bigold refused, claiming he didn't have the money for it and suggesting that if Dulas wanted it so badly, she could pay for them herself.
In a fit of rage, Dulas decided to find a solution. With plenty of free time on her hands—since customers rarely visited her uncle's workshop due to his domineering and judgmental temperament—she turned to research. She had no money, so she sought free and cheap solutions. After thorough research, all paths led her to slaves, clones, puppets, and array formation.
However, neither clones nor puppets were suitable for her problem because she would need to monitor and control them. Slaves were also out of the question—having worked under her uncle, she didn't want anyone to undergo that kind of torture, not even her enemies. Therefore, she had no choice but to turn to array formation. It was the most affordable option.
Since then, she started studying array formation in her uncle's workshop. It seemed that as long as she wasn't crafting, he didn't mind what she was doing in the shop. He didn't care how the shop was run; he only operated it because his parents had gifted it to him, and all his friends owned shops. So, he ran it for the sake of it. Little by little, as Dulas gained experience in array formation, she began to realize that she had a talent for it. She found it fun and interesting. What had started as a means to an end turned into a hobby she couldn't share with her friends or family.
However, that didn't stop her from creating a proposal for a commerce array formation to turn her uncle's workshop into a cashier-less operation. She presented the proposal to her uncle, but he rejected it, claiming he didn't have the money to set up an array formation or to maintain it daily.
Determined, Dulas used her own little pocket money to create a low-grade version of her initial commerce array formation, one that could run by gathering soul energy from Sector DS0909. To achieve this, she had to remove many features from the array formation, simplifying it into a rudimentary design that was just enough to run her uncle's workshop.
When she handed it to her uncle, he gave a patronizing speech about how it was a test and she had passed it. To show his "appreciation" for her hard work and determination, he announced that he would use the array formation in his workshop and officially promoted her to be his assistant. The worst part was that she believed him.
Just when Dulas thought things were finally turning around for her, her uncle had her cleaning the workshop and refused to let her participate in his crafting. It didn't surprise her, and she gave up expecting anything from him. However, she was allowed to use the workshop when he wasn't there—as long as she didn't get caught. And she never did, at least until they disowned her.
Now that she thought back to it, Dulas couldn't help but wonder why she had worshipped her uncle as a great craftsman when he was just a little better than the average crafters out there.
"Dulas, you created the array formation running Bigold's workshop? He led me to believe that he did. However, even though the array formation was rudimentary, the premise was good," Wyatt said, praising Dulas for the array formation. For her level, it was impressive, but for Bigold's level, it was just trash.
"That's because I was tight on budget and had to make sure it would run on the soul energy gathered from within the workshop. So, I had to remove a lot of features I initially planned to add to it. I thought of making it simple, prioritizing customer interface, but my uncle preferred it to be enigmatic, even though it made it tough for customers to navigate. It was a total hit and miss. If I get to do it again, I'll do a lot of things differently, starting with a bigger budget," Dulas explained why the array formation turned out poorly. However, she still didn't blame her uncle for it, instead attributing the shortcomings to her tight budget and limited resources.